This just started happening about 2 weeks ago. Drove about 30 miles on a warm day, made a stop for about 10 mins, then started up car and noticed it running really rough and having lack of power. Also the check engine light was on. Then another 10 mins. later, check engine light went off and everything was fine. This happened one other time since then and the only thing I could see in common was that in both cases, it was a warm day and driving time was over 30 mins. The temperature gauge was not abnormal either.
Any ideas as to what this could be or how I can find what is triggering the check engine light?

 

I have the same situation, but have never found out the cause. It is very serious when it occurs to my 90' SE. But after a day it goes away for 6-7 months. this has been going on for 6 years.

 

I also have this problem with a 1990 Maxima that I just purchased. It has 45k on it and I just had the cat convertor replaced. This problem occurred bothe before and after I had the cat work done. I am wondering if it could be the EGR valve? Have either of you replaced the EGR valve since this problem has been occurring? Have any of you had the computer error codes read to see if a problem is displayed? I have wondered if this would show anything?

My car has done this 3 times in the month that I have owned it. Each time was after it had been driven, then parked for between 3-6 hours, then started up to drive again.

Hope we can figure this one out :<)

 

me too!

 

my maxima was doing the same thing...i just took it in and 2 of the fuel injectors were all clogged up and so i had them replaced....now everythings perfect....that MIGHT be your problem but im not sure....just giving some advice.

 

Thanks "themaximus91". Any advice is appreciated. I am questioning though whether this is fuel injectors. The car runs so perfect all of the rest of the time other than these episodes that last about 5 minutes and rarely happen.

My wife also noticed during the last episode that she could faintly hear a clicking sound that went away when the rough running quit. Maybe this offers another clue ?

Thanks

 

Problem happened again last weekend. I'm afraid that by the time I get somewhere to get the error code read, the problem will go away like it has after a few minutes, and of course the "check engine" light goes away too. If it were clogged injectors, I would think this would be more of a consistant problem. It must be heat related and not a permanent problem but rather a conditional, intermittant problem. If only I knew what sensor was tripping to make the check engine light come on, maybe I could narrow down the search.

 

This could be due to connection problem with the Oxygen sensor.

 

Well, I thought this problem was heat related, but it just happened again tonight and it was pretty cool outside. The common factor in each case is that it only does this problem after car has been off and is started back up again wether it's a few minutes later or few hours later. This problem has never started while driving, but rather only after I have turned off the car and started it up again. Usually right after starting it, the Engine light comes on and the car then runs rough & shakey. Sometimes it goes away in a few seconds, sometimes up to half an hour!
Does this symptom sound like anything familiar to anyone? I would really like to solve this one, but I don't know where to start.

 

This is the same pattern as I have noticed in my Maxima. In fact it has been over a month and the Maxima acted up yesterday afternoon after setting for about one hour. At the same time it also made a noise that fluctuated with the engine speed. As I was idling (misidling) I would rev the engine and the noise, kind of a chirping sound. This sound went away as the engine quit missing. I feel that this sound is a big clue as to the mystery.

Ron

 

Thinkster: You and I are in the exact same boat. About 3-4 weeks ago I drove about 3 miles to get some lunch and returned home. About 15 minutes later I started up the car, got about 50 yards down my street and my CEL came on plus the rough idle and sluggish acceleration. Seemed like it was missing so I replaced my plugs, wires, rotor, and cap. To no prevail, the problem still occured. It is driving me nuts. It is extremely intermittant. Doesn't even last long enough to fiddle with the engine. I have had Nissan check the code twice now, and both times it threw and injector sensor code. It makes me think that it is a wiring issue because of how sporatic it does it. Right now I am running a tank of gas with techroline to see if the injector is clogged. Maybe I have a bad injector, but I don't think that is the case. I wish someone had a solution to this problem because it is irritating.

-Sean

 

So everyone in the same boat, maybe you can post your findings of what you've tried and if anything has helped. It may be hard to determine, expecially since the problem is intermittant. However, right now for me, the problem has continued for two days so maybe it will be easier to "catch" the culprit or discover the mystery. The more info we know, the easier it will be to troubleshoot.
UPDATE: I got the error code. It is: 51 which is supposed to indicate "Fuel injector circuit open". Now gotta figure out how to test these injectors...

 

Car finally acted up all day yesterday and this morning. Took it to Nissan, they discovered that the number one cylinder fuel injector had electronic problems. They are at this moment fixing it (and cleaning out my wallet). They said that this could of easily been the intermittent problem.

R

 

After it acting up for 3 days constant, last Monday, the problem cleared up on it's own as it used to after a much shorter amount of time. I visually inspected the connections to the injectors & found that the rubber boot was pretty much hard, dried and breaking apart. It looks like some of the connectors may have some green corosion. I got varied in-circuit resistances from each injector from 2 ohms to 1.7MOhms! I also looked at the accessable ones with a scope and looked like the pulse was getting to the injectors.
Curious as what Nissan meant that it had electronic problems? To me, that would seem like an ECU/ECM issue as that seems to be what controls the pulse that goes to the injectors. If the mean electro-mechanical, then that would be the injector itself.